Besieged
by death-in-the-orchard
Summary: Abraham Van Hellsing - on a night he cannot sleep, he waits in his study.


_Note: Playing with descriptions._

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Night had enclosed the world in greys and shades of darkness, isolation that breathed wisps of fear and exhausted memories – nostalgia passing through arteries as the moon faded and grew, the movement of roaming clouds set to graze upon a starry pasture. They condensed, pooling as isolation produced fear and an unknown predator stalked the edges of night. Darkness thus reigned, and the sighs grew louder, heartbeats shook what they touched. A chair creaked as a body leaned forward, a shadow submerged in a dark room - eyes were not blind as they perceived the phantom forms of white pages. Words escaped them, but the mind had charred their contents with incessant review ages before this night had fallen. Whispers flitted from the corners, pressing inward and darting out, passing through the porous walls. They went unspoken, only heard. Haunts, abundant in the deepest realms that come with sleep. But where no sleep ventures to invite them in, they will force themselves upon their prey.

The ghosts which had come out to play, took their time pinning webs to the hollow regions of the man's brain, where no thought dared to enter alone. Strung from nerves, they took residence in recounted times, and echoed what had been long stifled.

"Abraham," they whispered, softly breathing - churning blood. "Dear," they sighed, and "My Love," they sang. "My Love."

"Father," fangs sunk - the chill spilled to comb through prickled skin and risen hair. He fought to wrestle his heart from their parasitic grip. Talons curled, piercing deeper. The blood seeped – the heart shook, it gasped and the daggers twisted. Shut. They wrenched forth a section of flesh that beat upon them, begging for release.

_Have mercy! Have mercy, oh Lord, upon me! A sinner I have been, as all have fallen once. But a sinner I have not striven to be. So have mercy! Spare me- Spare me!_

The heart wept, torrents washing a will away as blue eyes remained dry. Watching, dimmed by darkness, tied to the phantom pages and brands which seared to life.

No mercy would come.

It never had.

The talons sank as the last morsel was swallowed, and they tore, splitting flesh like oars through water, leaving ripples to collide with one another, clashing aches that sprung a quiver, deeper than remorse. A murky hatred took shape, strumming the chaos with patient blades. The next grasp squelched, a groan and a pain that branched through the lungs. And the chair creaked as the body recoiled, a hand clutching helplessly, inches before the wounds. Pressing down to staunch the flow. Eyelids tightening as a brimming weakness dewed and then spilled.

The clouds shook the heavens with clashing thunder as rain poured upon woods and grasses, striking panes and running down them as the roof withstood the beating. The frame of the mansion held against the winds that ripped through trees and tore lose their leaves to plaster the cobblestones with red, brown, and golden bodies. They would be worn thin and broken with future passage, by soldier's boots tramping, breaking puddles and scattering water.

Now trunks and branches bent to the will of the storm. A man fell upon his desk, tonight defeated, but who would rise in the morning and carry on against the war. Despair was thick, tar that suffocated and choked as it slid into the belly. Cold, it hardened. Like stone, it sunk and brought the body lower.

Lightning struck, a blaze of fire that flared like a blast of angelic light, bursting the darkness and leaving it wounded and afraid as the crash of thunder broke upon its back, the bite of a thousand lashes whistling - cracking. Wind screeched and shadows scattered, shattering as light threw its might upon their existence and leapt away with the crashing torrent of sound. Breaking, cracking, and crumbling the walls of the keep that protected the night from the sun's rays.

They waged war outside the internal battle, neither able to triumph, only beset with fear and terror. War it had not planned to be, but war it was. It raged, tore, and wept over its mutilated figure. Pained by anger and misery it could not resist welcoming, embracing and recoiling, advancing and fleeing. Tortured, both darkness and light. Both in ecstasy, reeling in agony.

A form broke the light as it split on either side of the man. Still and silent, both he and the figure that had entered the study. One stood firm behind the chair, and waited until the moment let him enter.

A hand crossed the distance, and a glove touched a bent shoulder, pulling it free the instant the light fell, striking a blow at the darkness. The body rising back, the head lifting as misery dried and darkness again swallowed the scene. The crashing thunder broke, and Van Hellsing was lifted by a swelling breath. The ghosts dispersed, flying to more obscure and unseen regions of the mind. And the chair was left empty. The room's contents vanished where a door opened to an unlit hall, and then shut against the clash of forces besieged outside, those striking against oppression to seek freedom, and those reigning in and cloistering enslaved powers.

Both in misery. Unable to end.

Dawn was slow to come.


End file.
